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Daniel Nazer

Daniel is a Staff Attorney on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's intellectual property team, focusing on patent reform. Prior to joining EFF, Daniel was a Residential Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. He also practiced at Keker & Van Nest, LLP, where he represented technology clients in patent and antitrust litigation. Before that, Daniel was a legal fellow with the Drug Law Reform Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. Daniel clerked for Justice Susan Kenny of the Federal Court of Australia and Judge William K. Sessions, III of the U.S. District of Vermont. Daniel has a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Western Australia, an M.A. in philosophy from Rutgers, and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Daniel is the author of The Tragicomedy of the Surfer’s Commons (9 Deakin L. Rev. 655) and Conflict and Solidarity: The Legacy of Jeff D. (17 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 499). When he is not working, Daniel can be found surfing at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach.

Big law should not be a big bully. Last week, the nation’s largest law firm, Jones Day, tried to use trademark law to censor a website critical of Detroit’s emergency manager (a former Jones Day partner). As is typical, since the website criticized the firm, it included a Jones Day trademark.

In a long-awaited decision, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank today, striking down an abstract software patent. Essentially, the Court ruled that adding “on a computer” to an abstract idea does not make it patentable. Many thousands of software patents—particularly the vague and overbroad patents so beloved by patent trolls—should be struck down under this standard.

Patent reform suffered a massive setback today when Senator Patrick Leahy, as chair of the Judiciary Committee, announced that he is taking patent reform “off the agenda.” We understand that other senators—particularly Sens. Chuck Schumer and John Cornyn—were still working hard to reach a bipartisan deal.

UPDATE 5/8/14: It appears that Aspen has changed course. After a day of fierce criticism, it now says it will give students the option of buying the physical casebook or participating in its ‘Connected Casebook’ program.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument today in another patent case, Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc. In this case, the Court considers what to do when one party performs some steps of a patented method and another party performs the remaining steps. Specifically, Akamai wants to hold Limelight liable for patent infringement even though its customers perform one of the steps of the patent (i.e. four steps are performed by Limelight, one by the customers).

The patent office has issued its first ruling in our challenge to Personal Audio’s so-called podcasting patent. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) found that we have established a “reasonable likelihood” that we will prevail, based on two key pieces of “prior art” evidence. This isn’t a final ruling, but it is an important step forward.